<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Renewed by DrPearlGatsby</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22606132">Renewed</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrPearlGatsby/pseuds/DrPearlGatsby'>DrPearlGatsby</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant?, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, I mean I feel like at this point canon is just a bunch of people throwing their arms up going, Little bit of sexual tension, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-TRoS, Resurrected Ben Solo, Resurrection, Rose Tico Deserved Better, Some Humor, author still has not seen TRoS but hopefully this works out, does this make sense? IDK! plot? wat do, post-TRoS fix-it, renew: give fresh life or strength to, renew: re-establish (a relationship), renew: repeat (an action or statement), renew: resume after an interruption, sure, that's a thing, the Force works in mysterious ways</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 16:21:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,824</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22606132</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrPearlGatsby/pseuds/DrPearlGatsby</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The world between worlds is neither hot nor cold. So when Ben feels his arms break into gooseflesh, when his shoulder aches with not a remembrance but an actual twinge of pain, when he tries to rouse himself from meditation and realizes that he’s fighting the need to fall back asleep, he opens his eyes—in a room on the Millennium Falcon.</p><p>[[Something in the Force allows Ben Solo to be resurrected on the Millenium Falcon during a little Resistance mission. Expected hilarity ensues. Angst WITH A HAPPY ENDING.]]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rey &amp; Ben Solo, Rey &amp; Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>110</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>For one is both and both are one in love: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Renewed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/patig_00/gifts">patig_00</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hooray for this lovely exchange! :) Tried to work in as many elements of the prompts I received as I could. Wishing everyone love and fluffy Reylo feelings.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The world between worlds is neither hot nor cold. When Ben rests his eyes, he neither sleeps nor dreams—it’s meditation, a false kind of calm. Yes, there is peace here; but through the remaining tethers of the dyad bond he can feel her reaching toward him, and that—<em>that</em> is nearly unbearable.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t understand how to get back, how to be anywhere but here. He can’t see what Rey sees—if anything, he sometimes feels the ghost of climate or weather. A strange brushing sensation across his arms, felt only for a few moments, reminds him of a sandstorm. Now and then the memory of warmth on his face becomes an imagining that Rey stands somewhere in the sun. His heart aches at the thought of it, remembering the way her memories of Jakku felt—Rey deserves somewhere green. Somewhere with seasons, with rain, with respite from however many suns and beautiful moonlit nights.</p><p> </p><p>He reaches toward her, reaches the best he can; and sometimes he swears he can almost hear her voice. There’s a part of him, yes, that thinks he deserves to be dead—to pass from this place and dissipate completely in the Force. But still he is material, or something like it; and until there’s no more hope he won’t give up trying.</p><p> </p><p>The world between worlds is neither hot nor cold. So when Ben feels his arms break into gooseflesh, when his shoulder aches with not a remembrance but an <em>actual</em> twinge of pain, when he tries to rouse himself from meditation and realizes that he’s fighting the need to fall back asleep, he opens his eyes—in a room on the Millennium Falcon.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>.</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“What’s wrong, Rey?” Rose rolls out from under the console, squinting up at her.</p><p> </p><p>Rey feels cold all over, her palms clammy. She shakes her head mutely, pressing her lips together. “Nothing. It’s—nothing.” Ever since Ben had saved her—ever since she’d had to watch as his body dissolved into the force—she’s been able to feel a tiny part of him, a whisper of his presence. All this time she’s been reaching and she’s never met with <em>nothing</em>. But suddenly <em>nothing</em> is what she gets—nothing, and cold, and <em>emptiness</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Finally Rey smiles down at the other woman, hoping her expression is convincing enough. “Sorry,” she laughs. “I just stopped midsentence, didn’t I? I just… I was remembering something.”</p><p> </p><p>Rose looks at her quietly, then finally pulls herself out completely, moving to sit on the rolling mechanism she’s been lying on. “I’m almost done. It’s really not that bad.”</p><p> </p><p>“Good,” Rey says faintly, nodding.</p><p> </p><p>Rose’s hand goes to the medallion at her neck. She drops their eye contact. “You know, Rey, I… we can talk about it, if you want.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey feels very much like she needs to sit down. The security cameras show not a soul moving around. The base had been deserted as they’d predicted, the only difficulty being the disruptor shield Rose has been disabling. In just a few moments, Rose will shut it down; and they’ll be able to communicate with the Falcon again, business as usual. Rey sinks to the floor beside Rose. “Thank you,” Rey says with the same weak smile. “I just… I don’t know where to begin.”</p><p> </p><p>When Poe and Finn had approached her about shutting down a remote First Order base, she’d accepted, told herself that somehow it would be good. That a little space travel after months planetside might jog something in her memory, might trigger the mechanism she finally needed to reach Ben. “I thought I’d like it, going back to work like—like before,” she says quietly. Inside she’s straining against the Force, reaching out and grasping and finding nothing, nothing, nothing.</p><p> </p><p>“Work helps, sometimes,” Rose says softly beside her. “It reminds me of her, but it keeps me busy enough.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey shakes her head. “I—all this time, I could feel him.” Her chest is tight. “All this time I’ve believed that somehow he’s holding on. But just now, I… it’s empty. There’s nothing there.” When Rey looks to Rose, the other woman’s eyes are full of tears and it’s the only permission Rey needs to let her own tears fall.</p><p><br/>
Being back on the Falcon had been a kind of pretending, an “isn’t this great?” and smiles for Finn and Poe and Chewie. Chewie, maybe, was the closest to understanding what it was to lose Ben; but even then she didn’t know where the Wookiee’s heart was on the matter. When she’d first returned to the Resistance, she’d told them how Kylo Ren became Ben Solo again, how he’d heaved himself up from the pit and brought her back. In her last moments with him she’d seen his memories, seen as she tasted the dirt and salt of blood on his lips the depths of his sorrow and love. –Of course that part wasn’t something she shared, the bittersweet kiss. It was something that was hers, a memory she could live in again and again, the last moments of true peace she’d ever felt—before then and since.</p><p> </p><p>Rose rubs at the pendant between her fingers, the one she wears for her sister. Her new jumpsuit suits her better, but there’s a sharpness to her face that it hurts Rey to notice. Like most of the Resistance, she’d lost weight when rations were lean, lost sleep and a little of her usual vitality. Still, there was a quiet patience about her, a streak of intuition. Just over a day ago, Rose had sensed Rey’s hesitation and suggested they not take the Falcon—something Finn and Poe had overruled. Now she trains her gaze back on Rey again. “It’s hard, losing someone you love.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re a stronger person than me.”</p><p> </p><p>“What?” Rose’s voice squeaks. “How can you even <em>say</em> that? That’s <em>literally</em> untrue.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey wipes at her eyes. “All this time I’ve gone on believing—that I hadn’t really lost him. It’s all that was keeping me going. But just now, I felt something in the Force…” She shakes her head.</p><p> </p><p>“No one is ever really gone,” Rose says softly. “Right?”</p><p> </p><p>Rey takes a steadying breath. It shouldn’t feel any different than any of the other times she’s cried over Ben, and Force knows there are more than she could begin to count. But this time—this time it feels like she’s really, finally lost him for good. “I wish that were true.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>“It’s <em>your</em> turn,” a voice is complaining.</p><p> </p><p>Another male voice: “Something’s… wrong.”</p><p> </p><p>Ben Solo is standing naked in the middle of one of the bunk-rooms. He knows he’s in Rey’s quarters, but it’s clear she’s not the only one on the ship; and he doesn’t exactly want to make a grand entrance in the nude.</p><p> </p><p><em>Rey</em>, he tries calling out to her through the Force, but the Force has gone surprisingly quiet. He prods for her again, <em>Rey</em>, and there’s nothing—nothing like when he was alive before, anyway, and he’d almost not believe it except that under her pillow he finds, neatly folded, his own shirt.</p><p> </p><p>He brings it to his nose and mouth, breathing deeply, inhaling her scent before he puts it on. There are still holes in it that need to be mended, but that’s not the more pressing problem. Pants. He needs pants. There’s a duffel beside the other bed; inside, women’s clothing. Nothing that would fit.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you mean something’s—hey, where are you <em>going</em>?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t like the look on his face,” says a voice in Shyriiwook.</p><p> </p><p>The voice is approaching the door to the quarters. Ben hears him mutter, “I have a bad feeling about this,” and even as he’s listening for Rey to chime in Ben is yanking the blanket off of her bed and tying it around his hips like a towel. The door slides open.</p><p> </p><p>Standing on the other side of the door is the defector—FN-2187. The other man screams.</p><p> </p><p>“Whaaat?” Chewie howls from just outside the room, drawing out the word.</p><p> </p><p>Someone pushes FN-2187 out of the doorway, only to exclaim, “You’re <em>dead</em>!” His mother’s favorite—<em>Dameron</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“Apparently not.” His voice sounds—just as he remembered it, and for a moment he reels. It’s not been long enough for Ben to have truly forgotten material existence, but for a moment the cold metal floors and ambient ship-sounds and all the <em>voices</em> are a little overwhelming.</p><p> </p><p>“Who is it?” Chewie is asking. FN-2187 is immobile in the doorway. Dameron has given himself over to some sort of hysterical sputtering, pointing and failing to form any actual sentences. This isn’t exactly the welcome Ben envisioned upon returning to the land of the living. He moves toward them, making to push past them into the rest of the Falcon, blanket-skirt be damned. He elbows FN-2187 out of his path, just slightly, to peer into the corridor. “Where’s Rey?”</p><p> </p><p>“Ben!” Chewie exclaims, and then the both of them hesitate. <em>Right</em>, Ben thinks. <em>This is a part of it too</em>. He’s given a lot of thought to the things he did in life—his <em>first</em> life? Is that what he’ll call it? –The ways he hurt his mother. The unkind end he brought upon his father. And the myriad of ways in which he betrayed the Wookiee who had loved him fiercely, who had helped to shoulder the burden of raising him.</p><p> </p><p>“Chewie, I…” Ben drops his gaze, which only serves to remind him that he’s wearing a blanket like a skirt, and then he’s enveloped in the Wookiee’s smelly fur, trapped in a vice-grip and listening to the other being sobbing. “Where’s Rey?” Ben asks, straining against Chewie’s hold and expecting her to round the corner any minute.</p><p> </p><p>Dameron doesn’t look any less amused to see Ben trapped in place by Chewie. His voice has that same old taunt to it. “She’s planetside. Disabling one of <em>your</em> old bases with Tico. The field will drop any minute—”</p><p> </p><p>“Tico to Falcon! Do you read?” a voice rings out of the cockpit.</p><p> </p><p>“Bingo!” Dameron says, snapping his fingers and grinning as he goes to answer the message.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>.</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“We’ve got a few loose ends to wrap up here,” Rose says, making her voice sound as if all is well. Rey hasn’t gotten up from her place on the floor, is still shaking a little with tears. There isn’t anything left to do, and both women know it; this is all for Rey’s benefit.</p><p> </p><p>Poe’s voice sounds strained—bordering on hysterical. “Hey! Great! But don’t take too long. I have a feeling you’re <em>really</em> gonna wanna get back up here. <em>Pronto</em>.” In the background of the transmission Chewie is going on about something—it sounds quite <em>loud</em> up there in the Falcon.</p><p> </p><p>“What are they doing?” Rey mouths to Rose.</p><p> </p><p>Rose wrinkles her nose at the comm as she accuses, “Are you <em>drinking</em>?”</p><p> </p><p>“No! No, but we ought to be.” Poe’s voice darkens. “We <em>really</em> ought to be.”</p><p> </p><p>“Is it the Falcon?” Rey calls out, unable to help herself.</p><p> </p><p>More hysterical laughter, more weird <em>bawling</em> from Chewie, and some other sounds Rey can’t make out. “No, it’s—finish up soon, yeah? Over!”</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>.</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Rose pilots their tiny craft back up to the Falcon. She says it’s no trouble, that she’s been practicing, that Rey should rest.</p><p> </p><p>Rey can’t help but feel like a failure.</p><p> </p><p>The moment—the <em>second</em> she’d felt the weird disruption in the Force—that empty disconnect from what she knew was Ben—she’d stopped doing her job. Rose was the most capable engineer, the best person the Resistance had to hack and then alter First Order tech; Rey was the muscle, the Force-detector, the backup in the event the Knights of Ren were still kicking around somewhere in these abandoned First Order spaces. But she’d stopped reading the Force for anything <em>but</em> him.</p><p> </p><p><em>I’m a liability</em>, she tells herself, thinking of the friends waiting for her as Rose docks them with the Falcon. She’s planning it out in her head, what she’s going to tell Chewie and Finn and Poe as Rose steps out into the larger ship and <em>gasps</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“What is it?” Rey asks, going on alert, launching herself out the door—and then</p><p> </p><p>everything</p><p> </p><p>stops.</p><p> </p><p>Between a grinning Poe and teary-eyed Chewie, beside a very bewildered-looking Finn and wearing—Rey gives a strangled laugh that’s also a sob—his own shirt and some kind of <em>sarong</em>?—is <em>living, breathing</em> Ben Solo.</p><p> </p><p>Rey wants to go to him but instead her legs give out and she crumples to the floor like a kriffing mess, and all of a sudden <em>Ben</em> is there beside her, huddling over her, entreating her softly to tell him if she’s hurt and <em>shaking</em>, scooping her close to his chest with big trembling hands and rubbing at her back when she locks her arms around him and sobs into his perfect, warm chest. <em>Ben</em>, her mind is singing<em>, Ben, Ben</em>, and she’s crying “I couldn’t—I st-stopped hearing you,” and he’s saying, “I know,” but then there’s a tendril of the Force between them and they’re both staring into each other’s tear-stained faces laughing and crying and babbling each other’s names and <em>Ben</em>, alive, real, breathing, <em>Ben</em>.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>.</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Ben sits in the co-pilot’s chair of the Falcon with Rey curled up sideways in his lap, snoozing peacefully against his chest.</p><p> </p><p>Things have finally quieted down now. Beside them, Chewie is snoozing against the console, autopilot safely engaged. FN—no, <em>Finn</em>, they call him—and Dameron have retired to one side of the quarters, and Rose Tico to the other. Ben likes Rose Tico immediately. She’s certainly the least obnoxious of all of them and possibly the most observant; it was on her suggestion that everyone had gone to bed, knowing that Ben and Rey needed some time to just <em>be</em>.</p><p> </p><p>She’s so small in his arms, Rey, swallowed up in a loose shirt she’d borrowed from Rose. “I usually sleep in this,” she’d told Ben, plucking at his sweater. He’s still wearing the blanket—no pants on board that will fit his frame—but that small bit of indignity is an easy price to pay for living once again.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe they’ll never know. As she was drifting off Rey had traded ideas with him as to how it happened, why the dyad had dimmed when he manifested, why the Falcon, why anything at all. Not that it matters, particularly. He can feel now the shape of her dreams—quiet and calm—and had been getting flashes of emotion out of her all evening; she feels it, too, the way the Force is trickling back to them after expending so much of itself to bring him back.</p><p> </p><p>In his lap, Rey stirs and blinks awake. He’s waiting for her to see him, watching the way her expression changes when she comes into full awareness. “Ben?” she asks, lifting one hand and resting it on his cheek.</p><p> </p><p>It reminds him so much of that moment on Exegol. He gives her a watery smile.</p><p> </p><p>Her eyes travel sidelong a moment—to the sleeping Chewie—before she leans up and kisses him.</p><p> </p><p>It’s not like that first kiss—it’s less fierce: languid, luxurious as their mouths open to each other. Her hand goes up into his hair, trying to pull him closer, and his arms tighten around her, leaning her back by degrees until the dimensions of the chair stop them. There’s a low flame burning inside him that flares to life as they kiss, and when Ben pulls back—his lower lip caught, just for a moment, between Rey’s teeth, he sees a look in her eyes that mirrors his desire, her pupils blown wide.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Not here</em>,” he whispers with not a little regret.</p><p> </p><p>“Not <em>now</em>,” Rey counters, a promise in her eyes. “We’ll be dropping these fools off in half a cycle or less.”</p><p> </p><p>Ben swallows.</p><p> </p><p>A snore from Chewie interrupts them, bringing them back to the present.</p><p> </p><p>“You must want to get some rest,” Ben says, hooking an arm under Rey’s legs and moving to stand.</p><p> </p><p>“I am,” Rey insists, slapping lightly at his arm. “Stop that. I’m staying here.”</p><p> </p><p>“You should—”</p><p> </p><p>Rey jabs her finger into his chest to emphasize. “Right. Here.” Her eyes go a bit watery, and a waver creeps into her voice. “I don’t want to be without you. Not ever again.”</p><p> </p><p>Ben pulls her back into his chest, resting his chin on the top of her head. Seeing her crying—it’s contagious, and he cradles her close. She won’t have to be without him—he’ll make sure of it. This time he’s doing everything right. He won’t waste a single moment of this new, renewed life on anything less than loving her. <em>I love you</em>, he thinks, too choked up to speak it.</p><p> </p><p>She’s still shaking with her own tears, but her arms tighten around him to punctuate: <em>I know</em>.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>